A fascinating piece of research to read. One of the most interesting parts was the distinction you make between parts of the world where only a few sustainable practices will be enough to make a difference and those areas where many would be required. My question is about the latter - ie where many are required. Will any six do, as long as there are six of them? Does the grower need to know which practices need to be in the mix, or will any mix be OK, as long as there are many of them? A related question is what is your hunch about how the many practices interact? In a simple additive sense or more as a complex web? Thanks.
Thanks for your question. I think it gets tricky when you try to make specific recommendations for particular situations; I don't feel qualified to do that. The point of the analysis, however, is fundamentally about the number of items. In that sense, somewhat counter-intuitively, it's the number that has an effect, rather than the specific combination. But, of course, when you translate that into practice, some things will simply make more sense in a given situation than others. When dealing with the number of factors, it is currently difficult to extract the important interactions. But what we have found in other work is that the number of synergistic interactions increases with the number of items (Bi et al. 2024, Nature Communications); so it's definitely not just additive effects based on that study.
And thanks for the reply. While we don't know the precise mechanics (too many moving parts and interdependencies), we do know they work together as a system seems to be a theme I'm picking up from more than one place in terms of growing systems. Both those who advise and those who grow.
A fascinating piece of research to read. One of the most interesting parts was the distinction you make between parts of the world where only a few sustainable practices will be enough to make a difference and those areas where many would be required. My question is about the latter - ie where many are required. Will any six do, as long as there are six of them? Does the grower need to know which practices need to be in the mix, or will any mix be OK, as long as there are many of them? A related question is what is your hunch about how the many practices interact? In a simple additive sense or more as a complex web? Thanks.
Thanks for your question. I think it gets tricky when you try to make specific recommendations for particular situations; I don't feel qualified to do that. The point of the analysis, however, is fundamentally about the number of items. In that sense, somewhat counter-intuitively, it's the number that has an effect, rather than the specific combination. But, of course, when you translate that into practice, some things will simply make more sense in a given situation than others. When dealing with the number of factors, it is currently difficult to extract the important interactions. But what we have found in other work is that the number of synergistic interactions increases with the number of items (Bi et al. 2024, Nature Communications); so it's definitely not just additive effects based on that study.
And thanks for the reply. While we don't know the precise mechanics (too many moving parts and interdependencies), we do know they work together as a system seems to be a theme I'm picking up from more than one place in terms of growing systems. Both those who advise and those who grow.